ntl:Telewest forgets who its customers are

Someone else's fault obviously

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Some Virgin customers have been without ADSL services since this morning thanks to a breakdown in authentication, though things should be back to normal now.

The problem was with ntl:Telewest Business division, which started choking at 08.30 this morning when the servers responsible for checking usernames and passwords failed and customers found themselves disconnected. We're told that backup servers are now in place and everything should be operating normally, and that it's not ntl:Telewest's fault.

The company sent over a statement explaining that the "authentication process... lies outside of our network, and is owned and managed by a third party", though it isn't saying who that third party is, only that the mysterious third party "has since switched to back-up".

It's something of a trend these days to blame unnamed outsourcing companies for network failures, and it's not one of which we approve; let's just say that ntl:Telewest failed to hire the right third party and should therefore be prepared to take the blame on the chin. ®